This week,
Shabbat falls on the second day of Shavuot, so traditional congregations read a
special Torah reading recounting the sacrifices which were made during the Shavuot
Festival. (On the first day of Shavuot, we re-read part of the parasha Yitro in
Exodus, recounting the giving of the 10 Commandments). Hence a central theme of
Shavuot: z’man matan torahteinu, the time of giving of the Torah.
I wanted to take a look at a custom many observe during this holiday: eating
dairy.
While dairy foods are customarily associated with Shavuot, there’s no real
understanding as to why this is the case. Several ideas have been floated to
suggest a connection. In Psalms 68:16, Mount Sinai is called “Har
Gavnunim,” a Hebrew word similar to the Hebrew word for cheese (“gevinah”).
Gematria suggests that the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word for milk (“chalav”)
is 40, which is the number of days Moses spent on Mount Sinai. A more
far-fetched idea is that until the Torah was given, Jews had no idea which
animals were kosher, so they lived on dairy or pareve foods only.
Perhaps there is a single textual connection which gives substance to this custom.
In Ex. 34:26, we read, “Bring first fruits to the house of God; you shall not
boil a kid in its mother's milk.” The holiday of Shavuot is when first fruits
were offered, and the same verse refers to milk.
The Ashkenazi custom of eating blintzes, it has been suggested, comes from the
idea that two blintzes on a plate look like the scrolls of Torah!
For those who are not lactose intolerant, may I suggest that eating a cheese
pizza works out very well. The triangular shape of a slice reminds us of the
three kind of Jews: Priests, Levites, and Israelites. A typical pizza is sliced
in 8ths (except for those strange square or rectangular pizzas, which are for
another discussion). The 8 pieces represent the seven weeks of the Omer and the
first week afterwards, starting with Shavuot. The crust is brown (like the
wilderness), the sauce reminds us of the “Red” Sea of the Exodus, and the white
(the cheese) is in tradition a symbol of physical and intellectual
purity, being the true color of light, without any modification. And pizza, as
a whole, reminds us to be grateful for eating something so delicious.
